It's Only the Beginning
by Wreckilicious
Summary: During a restless night, RJ and Heather find they have some things in common and leads to a bond.  sorry I suck at summaries  slightly HxR


It's Only the Beginning

RJ couldn't sleep. He looked up at the moon, which seemed to be growing fuller faster every night. The missions were going great thanks to the help of his new friends. However, he couldn't shake the feeling that something would go wrong and that he'd end up being bear food by the end of the week. Impending death really takes a toll on a guy.

He was walking through the forest, no specific destination. Many thoughts raced through his mind. What if they couldn't get if enough food? What if Vincent woke up early and decided he wanted all his food NOW? What if-

"Hi, RJ!"

"WHOA!"

RJ flipped backwards and landed on his back. Oh no, Vincent was here and he was going to kill him! RJ shut his eyes tight, expecting the worst.

"Please don't kill me!" he begged, clasping his hands over his heart.

He heard a girlish giggle above him. "Don't be silly. It's just me."

RJ looked up and saw Heather hanging upside down on a branch directly above him, her tail the only thing holding her up. He was always jealous of that trick…

He wiped a paw across his forehead in relief. "Phew! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Heather smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Nah it's fine. So what, you just hanging around?"

She rolled her eyes. "Bad pun, RJ."

"I know, but I couldn't resist. So, uh, what're you doing?"

"Oh, I couldn't sleep and everyone else is snoozing away, so I thought I'd see what you were up to."

"Ah-ha. Well hop down and we'll be insomniacs together."

They heard a crack, then before they knew it the branch that Heather was on snapped, resulting in her fall. To her great horror, she ended up landing right on top of RJ.

"Ooof!"

Heather freaked out, mortified she just practically squashed him and immediately flew off of the raccoon.

"I didn't mean for you to hop down so violently," RJ kidded with her.

"Oh my gosh, I'm SO sorry. Did I hurt you? I can't believe I did that!"

RJ coughed a little bit to catch his breath but he slowly got up and dusted himself off. He chuckled a little and said, "No, no, it's cool. I mean, now, if your dad ever lands on me, then I'd probably have a few broken bones. But you're okay, you can land on me anytime. And I won't say any 'Thanks for dropping in' jokes either."

She felt a little giddy and had to tell herself to calm down some. Her tail swished a little bit more than usual, giving away she was nervous. Thankfully, RJ didn't seem to notice.

"Thanks. I guess as long as I don't get fat, we're okay then, huh?"

He put his arm around her shoulders. "Girl, you're perfect the way you are, don't ever change that, okay?" He gave her a reassuring wink before walking off.

The young opossum felt her heart racing. "So, uh, where you going?"

"Ah, nowhere. Just cruising the neighborhood. What about you, isn't it past bedtime?"

Heather took offense at that, crossing her arms and scowling. "I'm not a little kid, you know. I can stay up late if I want to."

"Right, right, sorry. Didn't mean anything by it. You guys just always go to bed at the same time, so I figured you'd be with them."

"Yeah, I'm not sure who started that tradition. It's kinda lame sometimes but it's nice having a family to do that sorta stuff with."

RJ smiled sadly. "Yeah, I suppose it is. I'm not used to the whole family thing myself."

Heather frowned. "Oh yeah, sorry. You mean the thing with the weed-hacker?"

"Yeah, but hey it was a long time ago. I don't wanna bore ya with a sob story."

"No, it's not gonna bore me," she inputted quickly. "I mean, uh, you can talk about it if you want to. I don't mind."

RJ sighed, remembering that fateful day.

"Well, I was probably only a few months old. Little bitty squirt. I had a brother named Dewey, I remember that. I don't know where Dad was, or if I even had one. Anyway, all I know is we were chillin' out living the good life in some suburbs we moved into. We lived in the park, which is where humans go when they want to get close to nature. Has trees and benches to sit on and stuff like that. Funny how they do that but then chase us away when we get close...

"Anyway , so my brother and I had stolen a universal remote which can control pretty much any tv you point it at. It was our favorite thing. One day it finally ran out of batteries so we went and stole those too along with a bunch of other junk. My mom was kinda ticked off because we did it without her with us and we could've gotten killed. Yadda yadda yadda. She told us to take all the extra stuff back but we didn't want to, so she dragged us to the house we stole it from.

"Unfortunately, the owner of the house had set up his own man-made trap that involved…the weed-hacker. I'm not sure how it worked because I didn't stick around for long. All I know is my mom was running across the yard to put the stuff back on the back porch and then my brother went after her for some reason and triggered the motion detector. The trap went off and all I heard was screaming and that was enough for me to high-tail it out of there. I didn't look back. I waited a while at home for them but they never showed up. So I was on my own after that."

Heather wiped a tear from her eye. "Wow, that's really sad."

"Don't tell anybody, I try to keep that on the down low."

"Yeah, of course." She felt pretty good that RJ had entrusted her with this information, she didn't want to let him down.

"So anyway, that's when I started learning as much about humans as I could. I wanted to be prepared for anything so something like that wouldn't ever happen again."

He got quiet then. He seemed so sad, it broke Heather's heart.

"I lost my mom and brothers too."

RJ looked at her. "Really?"

She got embarrassed at the attention, kicking the dirt a little with her foot.

"Yeah, I don't really remember it though, not in detail like you do. I remember Mom taking me and my six brothers to go pick berries. Dad was somewhere, I'm not sure where. Talking a nap or something I guess. Anyway, this huge fox popped up out of nowhere and scared us all. Mom started hollering for Dad and we got all separated in a scuffle. I think I must've passed out or hit my head or something, because next thing I know is it's dark outside and I started crying for Dad. He heard me and scooped me up to give me a hug. He said something about Mom not coming back and sure enough I never saw her or my brothers again. I think that's why Dad acts so overprotective sometime and goes a little overboard with the whole "play dead" thing."

"Yeah, that certainly makes sense. He seems like a great guy."

"He can be," she admitted. "Okay, this is all making me depressed. Want to listen to some music I snatched up today on the heist?"

"Girl, you are rockin!" he smiled at her. "I'd love to."

"Really?" sh grinned widely. "Okay, let me go grab it, stay here."

She dashed off to go find the player. RJ watched her and shook his head. She was really nice to talk to and pretty cute too. He never thought he'd think a possum was cute before.

Heather came back with the CD player and some headphones. She stretched the headset as far out as she could get it. "Here, we have to wear these to hear the music."

She sat down next to him and propped the right earpad over his ear and the left over hers. Their heads were touching and if possums were able to blush, Heather sure would have been right then.

"So, what we listening to?" RJ asked her, adjusting his earpiece to where it would fit right.

"I was gonna throw in Avril Lavigne but I thought that'd be, like, too girly for you so I put Ben Folds in instead," she winked at him. She couldn't believe how bold she was being. There's no way she would've been able to do this with her dad around.

RJ threw her a thumbs up. "Excellent choice. Crank it up!"

They danced together 'til dawn, enjoying both the music and the company.

The End

Hop y'all enjoyed!


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